Family Ties Help Kean in Senate Race, Poll Says

Senator Robert Menendez, right, and the Republican challenger Tom Kean continued to push on the campaign trail on Thursday. A new poll shows an extremely tight race in the heavily Democratic state of New Jersey.Credit
Sharon Stabley for The New York Times; Dith Pran/The New York Times

Thomas H. Kean Jr., the Republican challenger for United States Senate in New Jersey, has capitalized on his father’s reputation to offset voters’ qualms about his inexperience. Senator Robert Menendez has been buoyed by discontent with President Bush. The result in this heavily Democratic state is an extremely tight race, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

The poll suggests that Mr. Kean, a state senator, has done surprisingly well in a year when other Republicans are struggling even on friendlier turf not because of Mr. Kean himself, but because of his father, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, one of the state’s most popular politicians.

Mr. Kean’s commercials attacking Mr. Menendez as unethical and corrupt have also worked, with many voters saying that corruption is the first thing that springs to mind when asked about Mr. Menendez.

Mr. Menendez is widely considered the nation’s most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent, as the Democrats try to win six seats to take control of the Senate, and 56 percent of his supporters said they would vote for him not because of his views or his character, but because of his party.

“I am so concerned about the makeup of the Senate of the United States,” said E. Janet Hackbarth, a 67-year-old retired high school teacher in Pompton Lakes, in a follow-up interview after the poll was completed. Describing herself as an independent, she added, “I am voting for Menendez because I am voting against the Republicans.”

Over all, the race is a statistical tossup, with Mr. Menendez leading 38 percent to 36 percent among registered voters, and 40 percent to 39 percent among likely voters. Yet neither candidate has generated much enthusiasm, or made much of an impression. More than half of those surveyed said they had no opinion — either good or bad — about the candidates.

As a result, the race appears to be far more fluid than recent Senate races in New Jersey. Thirty-nine percent of registered voters said that they could change their minds before the Nov. 7 election; that figure was 13 percent in a Times poll taken at about the same point during the 2002 campaign between Senator Frank R. Lautenberg and Douglas R. Forrester.

With the national parties promising to pump an additional $7.5 million into the race in the final two weeks, the race could well hinge on last-minute commercials or surprises. And that could be anything from any developments related to Iraq or the Mark Foley scandal, potentially favoring Mr. Menendez, to conservative backlash against the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday to grant gay couples equal rights, potentially benefiting Mr. Kean.

The Times poll, conducted Friday through Wednesday, did not include questions about gay unions.

But if patterns hold, the race will come down to what is essentially a proxy battle: those who are motivated by national issues, and dislike Mr. Bush, versus those who are motivated by local issues, and who look up to former Governor Kean.

Robert Sapanara, 69, a Republican from Ramsey, a northern New Jersey suburb, offered a response typical of those who said that they would vote for Mr. Kean. “I think there’s got to be some counseling given to him by his father, and hopefully some of those genes rubbed off on him,” he said.

Mr. Menendez’s difficulties are noteworthy because no other Democratic incumbent is in as close a race, motivating Republicans nationally to focus increased attention and resources on the race. Of course, the word incumbent merits an asterisk, because Mr. Menendez, a longtime congressman from Hudson County, was appointed in December to serve out the balance of Jon S. Corzine’s term when he was elected governor.

Still, Democratic consultants express frustration with the race, because they had not counted on paying much attention to New Jersey in their bid to wrest control of the Senate away from Republicans.

Both campaigns have already spent a lot of money: through Oct. 18, Mr. Menendez spent $9.3 million, and Mr. Kean $5 million, with much of that on television commercials in the last couple of months.

The telephone poll included 1,023 adults throughout the state, 849 of them registered to vote. The margin of sampling error for both was plus or minus three percentage points. In addition, 522 of the registered voters were determined to be likely to vote, and the margin of sampling error for that group was plus or minus four percentage points.

The poll showed that 28 percent of voters have an unfavorable impression of Mr. Menendez, compared with 18 percent with a favorable impression. Mr. Kean is viewed unfavorably by 22 percent, and favorably by 24 percent.

Part of the appeal of Mr. Kean, the poll suggests, comes from his bloodline. Voters said that they were favorably disposed toward the elder Mr. Kean by 52 to 10 percent; 27 percent said they were more likely to view the younger Mr. Kean favorably because of his father.

And what was the first thing that popped into voters’ minds when asked about Mr. Kean? The fact that he was a governor’s son, according to 33 percent of those surveyed; no other factor had more than 10 percent.

Fifty-nine percent of voters feel that Mr. Menendez, who has spent three decades at all levels of government, has the right experience for the job, compared with 48 percent for Mr. Kean, who has spent five years in the State Legislature.

Voters say that they trust Mr. Kean more, however, with 55 percent saying that he has the honesty and integrity to be effective, and 24 percent saying he does not, versus ratios of 45 percent to 34 percent for Mr. Menendez.

Still, only 36 percent of voters said that Mr. Kean, who grew up in a wealthy family, could relate to the needs of regular people, while 46 percent said he could not. For Mr. Menendez, the son of poor Cuban immigrants, the numbers were reversed, with 43 percent saying he could relate, and 37 percent saying he could not.

When voters were presented with a list of issues and asked to name the one most important in their decision, 37 percent selected the economy and jobs, followed by 22 percent who said Iraq, 15 percent who said terrorism and 14 percent who said health care.

Those more concerned about national issues, with Iraq being No. 1, leaned toward Mr. Menendez; those more focused on local issues, with taxes being No. 1, favored Mr. Kean.

About 80 percent of Republicans support Mr. Kean and 69 percent of Democrats prefer Mr. Menendez. Independents, who make up about 35 percent of voters in the state, divide 36 percent for Mr. Kean to 32 percent for Mr. Menendez.

A classic gender gap also exists. Mr. Kean is ahead by 12 points among men, while Mr. Menendez enjoys a 13-point advantage among women. There is a typical urban and suburban divide, too, with Mr. Menendez faring better in the northern urban areas, and Mr. Kean leading in Republican strongholds like Morris, Somerset and Hunterdon Counties, in the northwestern part of the state.

Of those who said they were undecided, 22 percent were independents, 12 percent were Democrats and 7 percent were Republicans.

By three to one and more, voters also said that both candidates were spending too much time attacking each other; 30 percent said that Mr. Kean was more responsible for the negative tone, while 21 percent blamed Mr. Menendez.

“Both of these people are just slandering each other, getting vicious, spending X amount of dollars, I’m just sick of it,” said Georgette Hendricksen, 59, a Republican from Roselle Park, a middle-class town in central New Jersey. “ I don’t know which we’d be better off with. I’m going to wait until the last minute to decide.”

Megan Thee and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Kean Name vs. Doubt on Bush Makes for Tossup in New Jersey. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe